Quick question, I'm aware generally nothing should be installed on a HyperV host other than neccessary software to keep the host safe and well.

As I'm a bit squeezed for hardware though, does anyone know the impact of having BackupExec server and its conected tapedrive on a HyperV host? The backexec server is purely being used to transfer server images to tape, nothing more.

BackUp Exec is simply to transfer all the server images to tape for archival purposes (ShadowProtect used to create them). Fortunately an old bit of hardware has become available and, as it's not production critical, this will do the job for me.

The clear consensus is that it would be a bad idea to run BackUpExec on a HyperV host.

I like the idea of a Host-based VM backup (in addition to my in-guest imaging) too, as per Joey.D above. I'm a belts and braces kind of guy ;-)

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You'll be slamming IO through the Hypervisor and the management VM. If your pulling data from VM's over the network you might be hair pinning IO like 3 times. It might work for your needs, it might not work :)

<snip> As I'm a bit squeezed for hardware though, does anyone know the impact of having BackupExec server and its conected tapedrive on a HyperV host? The backexec server is purely being used to transfer server images to tape, nothing more.

Going down another route - do you need BE for a specific reason? It sounds like you are, from the description, doing a simple image transfer, and if you're just doing image transfers, you can use VSS and Windows backup with perhaps even better reliability than using a third party. You'll need to enable VSS in Hyper-V first, but you should be able to bypass using BE.

Even has a one-button Fix-It on the site. This does not require bandwidth coming in and out of your virtual nics, but rather uses the native VSS to copy the VM, so you will use a LOT less network IO, but more storage IO.

I've found it works great in our branch offices... and as an avid Windows-backup hater I had to eat some crow and my hat when this worked like a charm.

BackUp Exec is simply to transfer all the server images to tape for archival purposes (ShadowProtect used to create them). Fortunately an old bit of hardware has become available and, as it's not production critical, this will do the job for me.

The clear consensus is that it would be a bad idea to run BackUpExec on a HyperV host.

I like the idea of a Host-based VM backup (in addition to my in-guest imaging) too, as per Joey.D above. I'm a belts and braces kind of guy ;-)

Quick question, I'm aware generally nothing should be installed on a HyperV host other than neccessary software to keep the host safe and well.

As I'm a bit squeezed for hardware though, does anyone know the impact of having BackupExec server and its conected tapedrive on a HyperV host? The backexec server is purely being used to transfer server images to tape, nothing more.

Stay away from throwing anything inside parent partition unless absolutely necessary. You definitely don't have THAT case. Put BE into a dedicated VM and throw in tape drive over iSCSI inside that VM (we have a free product for this, Google for "Tape Redirector"). Unless you're pumping terrabytes per hour (doubt so...) you should be fine and **safe** (not compromising hypervisor itself).